Paradise Park Allegra Goodman Delta, $12.95 softcover, 360 pages Faith is a very personal and customized phenomenon. In a quest for God, one often has to kiss a lot of frogs before discovering the prince. Such is the experience of Sharon Spiegelman, the lovely and confused heroine of Paradise Park, Allegra Goodman's latest novel. Sharon's journey begins in her early 20s. After her boyfriend ditches her in a cheap hotel in Honolulu, Sharon must decide where her life is going. She is a young hippie with a guitar, her grandfather's watch, and a macramé bikini. She's been expelled from college for drug infringements and abandoned by her parents. Sharon decides to stay in Hawaii and build a life for herself, drifting in and out of relationships and employment. One miraculous day she heads out to sea on a whale watching expedition, gazes into the depths of the ocean, and catches a glimpse of God. Thus begins Sharon's quest for a spiritual life. With no real jumping-off point she begins to experiment, trying everything from Christianity to Buddhism. Throughout her spiritual experimentation she experiences moments of divine communion, but they are fleeting and nothing she attempts seems to be a perfect fit. Eventually a series of seemingly random events leads her back to Judaism, the untapped religion of her youth. It is here, immersed in the faith of her ancestors, that Sharon finds the serenity she has been seeking. She also finds love, a home and her place in the magical circle of life. Goodman has created a vivid, misguided, utterly confused heroine who takes her knocks and keeps her nose to the grindstone until, as if by accident, she finally finds her way. This novel will be cherished by anyone who has ever felt himself stumbling through the darkness on his way to the light. -Lynn T. Theodose

Beasts Joyce Carol Oates Carroll & Graf, $15.95 softcover, 138 pages We are beasts and this is our consolation" is the text accompanying an exhibition of sculpture, in Joyce Carol Oates' Beasts. But before we find that out, we know that "We are beasts, we feel no guilt." Gillian Brauer is a student at a prestigious women's college in New England. Andre Harrow is a charismatic professor and teacher of an exclusive poetry seminar. Dorcas is Harrows' wife, who makes the atavistic sculpture in the show "Totems and Taboos," which the aforementioned text describes. Gillian is enthralled by Harrow, and fascinated by Dorcas. Harrow, we come to find, is a failed poet and a disciple of D. H. Lawrence. Dorcas is almost as bad. Gillian is only one of a long string of young girls they have exploited in their twisted pursuit of something that is never quite clear, but which involves young women, drugs, sex and pornography. Beasts is an intricate, deep story with a tight plot and mysterious but gripping characters. Unlike some of Oates' longer works, Beasts is relentless, never allowing the reader a moment's rest from the compelling story. It is set in the mid 1970s. It could only be set in the mid 1970s, when anorexia is dismissed, professors' relationships are never questioned, and D. H. Lawrence was a whole lot more important than he is today. Gillian is tutoring a fellow student in philosophy, who "never grasped the fundamental fact that logic has nothing to do with truth, only with premises... In our world, 'evil' just seems to be something people do out of their own self-interest, and others object. What's 'good' is what our side does." "Our side" ultimately takes care of Harrow and Dorcas, but there is a sinister fog surrounding these characters and their actions that force the reader to interpret motives and actions from a distorted set of clues. There is an inevitability about the fate of this twisted couple, but the reader must supply the characters' motives, and Oates is showing only the outlines and the atmosphere and telling nothing. The blurbs for Beasts talk about "gothic romance" and "psychological horror" and it being "dark" and "suspenseful," but they miss the point. All of these descriptions point away from the fact this story is terribly real. If you were a certain age in 1976, you know someone who experienced this, down to the Lawrence quotes. -Chris McMahon